Today our family has chickens for the second time and chicks for the first. We raised quite a variety of mutts for eggs for quite a few years, but most had passed and a few others were dinner after their retirement. Today at Rural King the kids fell in love with a little banty. The husband did the huff and eyeroll, and helped pick up a couple of them and another 6 from the $.50 brooder. Not sure on either breed, and when I get a few more posts, I will most likely post a picture of the clan. Since we had not planned on having chicks, we threw together a brooder out of an old plastic tub and a heat lamp with some poplar wood shavings from the pantry shelf boards we planed this week, and picked up a feeder and water dish at the store. I'm not sure of the age of any of them. I can assume the banty is 4-5 days and the other chicks are 3-4 weeks. However, since I have never raised chicks before, I have no clue, and am just purely guessing based on other pictures. I could be horribly off. I feel pretty confident that I can plan on most being roos, although one of the older chicks does have a very hen-ish shaped head. I'm sure there are many of you that could tell by a picture very easily.
So now I have chicken fever and have started looking into starting a new clan. I have a nice coop that easily held 25-30 hens when we had them, and I'm thinking of maybe trying to get around 20 hens this time around, and if project chicks works out, I will probably even let a few eggs hatch from time to time. Funny how much I missed having chickens around and a rooster crowing in the morning.
So now I have chicken fever and have started looking into starting a new clan. I have a nice coop that easily held 25-30 hens when we had them, and I'm thinking of maybe trying to get around 20 hens this time around, and if project chicks works out, I will probably even let a few eggs hatch from time to time. Funny how much I missed having chickens around and a rooster crowing in the morning.
